The Strangers by Mort Castle

Author:Mort Castle [Castle, Mort]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781892950567
Publisher: Overlook Connection Press
Published: 1984-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

There really was a business meeting set for 3:30 that afternoon with the St. Louis supplier of paper towels and so, after leaving Park Estates and swinging south onto 1-57, they talked about that. Yes, they were getting the best wholesale price possible; even with a standard eighty percent mark-up, Superior Chemical was able to undercut the price of competing janitorial supply firms. But quality control wasn’t all that it could be; towels sometimes jammed in dispensers. Worse, too often the supplier felt free to make substitutions and maybe there was no difference in the feel of “Pure White,” stock number 34057 and “Creme,” number 34059, but customers did complain, and so the president of Superior Chemical and the national sales manager were going to “iron things out.”

Of course the ironing out could have been as easily accomplished with a letter or telephone call. This trip’s real business was Herb Cantlon.

Herb Cantlon! Michael thought. That goddamned bloated piece of meat! Uh-huh, the important meeting—Surprise, Herby, you fat fucker—wasn’t in St. Louis; it was about an hour and a half back on up the road to Mt. Claron, Illinois. Eddie Markell was arranging it. No severance pay for Cantlon. No meaningless, euphemistically worded letters of reference. Herb’s association with Superior Chemical was going to be painfully terminated.

Goddamn! Michael felt a surge of power within him, electrical in its intensity. It was as though the human shell he was forced to wear was far too small and confining for the reality of his being, The Stranger who walked through the world, his invisible aura glowing with the red promise of blood.

A promise soon to know fulfillment! Michael thought, as he gazed out the Buick Regal’s window at the endlessly flat landscape of central Illinois that whizzed by. He could picture these drab, quiet farmlands flooded with gore, the, United States, the entire world awash in a unifying ocean of blood—the Time of the Stranger.

That was what Jan Pretre had vowed.

Seeing Jan last Saturday had given him renewed hope in The Strangers’ destiny of death. It had shaken him as well, caught him off-guard and left him with question.

“Vern?” Michael said

“Yes, Michael?”

“I want to ask you something.

Vern turned his head to smile benignly at Michael. “One inquires and one learns, Michael. Isn’t that American folk wisdom?”

“I’m serious, Vern.” Michael said.

“All right.”

“Did you know Jan Pretre and I knew each other, that we met a long time back?”

Now Vern was staring straight ahead, his brows set as though he were peering through a misty drizzle and not looking out through the windshield on a remarkably clear day. In a voice devoid of his typical theatrical enunciation, Vern said, “Yes, Michael. I know all about Jan and you. I’ve known for a long time.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me he was going to be at your place, Vern? Is there something I’m being left out of?”

Vern didn’t answer for over a mile and when he did respond, he did not look at Michael. “There have been things I’ve been told not to tell you, Michael.

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